I can report that I successfully attached an LCD display (hd44780 compatible) to the parallel port, and using mpdlcd, it shows song info, etc.

There was some soldering involved on a spare LPT (printer) cable, and the whole shebang is temporarily wired through a breadboard, but the thing works! No extra packages required, nothing! Just edit the /etc/LCDd.conf file for the type of display and wiring (hd44789 and "winamp" wiring),start LCDd (LCDd -d hd44780), and start mpdlcd (just type "mpdlcd" on command line), and there it goes - showing info on the external 16x2 LCD
Now for some kind of DIY IR remote sensor, an old remote control, and that's it
Once again, thanks to Idolse for a very nice distro - you thought of everything
And I also learned a lot about puppy linux in general

So, I'm OK with it displaying the track which is playing (artist, title, time), but when anything esle happens (e.g. when I press "Stop" or change volume), I'd like to have the display show immediately what's going on, e.g. when the track is stopped, it should say "Stopped" or something like that, and when the volume is changed, it should show some kind of feedback (volume bar changing, or even some kind of text, like "Volume: xx %" or similar).

Can this be done using mpdlcd?
If not, is there any other client I could use for this purpose (showing more detailed info on external 16x2 LCD display)?

Regarding mpdlcd, I believe it is customizable, but I haven't played with it much - there is a 'patterns' section in /etc/mpdlcd.conf that can be tweaked, but I'm not sure of all the details. I don't think Volume is an option this time. The author for mpdlcd has been quite responsive, you just need to go to his Github site and open an issue there.

What are the absolutely minimum space requirements for mpdPup to work properly?

Namely, I'm installing on a thin client with CF card instead of a hard disk, and I have a bunch of 128MB CF cards, which I'd like to use for several such "thin client" systems I'm preparing for a couple of friends....

I've noticed that mpd stores its music library database on disk, and wonder how big it can grow?

In short, would it be safe to do a frugal install to 128MB CF card, use the smallest .2fs save file size (which is ... 32MB?), and have the system operate normally with fairly large music library (15.000 - 20.000 tracks) on an external USB disk?
I've done this, and I have about 9MB left free on CF card, but don't know what will happen if a user has e.g. 3-4 large external USB disks with music, each with 20-30 thousand tracks... Would the mpd database grow too large - and thus mpd would not be able to save it on CF card, and throw errors (and consequentially, not start automatically, requiring manual intervention or deletions, etc.)?

I've noticed that mpd stores its music library database on disk, and wonder how big it can grow?

I've just tried attaching an external USB HD, with about 15.000 tracks in a "music" subdirectory.

I did an "update library" from ncmpp (which took a while....) - after a couple of minutes all tracks were added to the library, and after checking the "database" file in "mpd" directory, it has grown to about 3.2MB.

So, for about 15.000 tracks, the database library can thus be something between 3.2 and 3.5MB (I guess it depends on the tags etc...).

Those sizes sound about right - if you're really worried about the database growing you could just stick the MPD home folder on the NAS - you just need to edit mpd.conf to point there.

That sounds interesting...

So, basically, I could have separate MPD home folders for each external USB disk - each on its own disk?
That way I could avoid a new mpd library update each time the user swaps external storage (swaps existing USB disk with another... one of my friends has 3-4 LARGE USB disks with HQ flac files)

However, I guess that requires the same folder and mount structure for each of the external disks used, as stated in mpd.conf

Am I on the right track?

Basically, I'm trying to make swapping USB storage transparent for the (linux-ignorant) end user
If such a user needs to initiate a new mpd library update each time he/she connects another large USB external disk, it's not going to work without my extensive phone support

So, basically, I could have separate MPD home folders for each external USB disk - each on its own disk?
That way I could avoid a new mpd library update each time the user swaps external storage (swaps existing USB disk with another... one of my friends has 3-4 LARGE USB disks with HQ flac files)

However, I guess that requires the same folder and mount structure for each of the external disks used, as stated in mpd.conf

Am I on the right track?

Basically, I'm trying to make swapping USB storage transparent for the (linux-ignorant) end user
If such a user needs to initiate a new mpd library update each time he/she connects another large USB external disk, it's not going to work without my extensive phone support

Hmm... if you're looking at a disk swapping solution it could be done theoretically. The MPD DB and music folders would indeed need the same folder structure on each disk as you note. You should mount the disks read-only to the same mount path to facilitate safer swapping, and you would ideally want a udev rule to launch the mpd init script to restart MPD automatically when the disks were swapped so it would change to the new database.

Hi all,
I received new firmware from DCS to be able to listen to DSD files over USB. But with my mpd 0.16.8 installation of mpdpup it does not seem to work at the moment, mpd does not recognize DSD files.

Question to people who have expercience with mpdpup and DSD files:
- Is there an easy way to change to mpd 0.17.2 from 0.16.8 in mpdpup when already installed (I think you can choose when you set it up for the first time)?
- Is there any other things to do (I read somewhere in this threat that entries in mpd.conf have to be changed)?

Adding dsd_usb "yes" to the mpd.conf file made it all work. I can listen to DSD now! Great.

Although I am having dropouts playing high resultion files now. Anyone having experience in optimizing the settings (buffersize, etc.) in mpd.conf for DSD?

Not sure if you're seeing something DSD specific or just hi-rez specific. Some users find they need to unplug and re-plug the USB DAC after the system has been booted for Hi-rez (176Khz & 192Khz) to play correctly. DSD might be in the same boat.